Xinghua Wang

This book reports on the findings of a series of studies on the development of zero-to-three-year-old Chinese children supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. The studies were conducted by a research group at the Institute of Early Childhood Education, Beijing Normal University. In the first part of the book, findings concerning the developmental trajectory are presented, including physical and motor development, cognitive development, language development, social and emotional development. The focus of the second part is on the effect of family environment and practices. Specifically, the authors provide empirical evidence allowing readers to better understand how the home environment and educational practice in the family impact the psychological development of children in their early years. In the last part, culture-specific issues like the new universal two-child policy in China are discussed. Most of the parts are based on large-scale investigations and analysis of the status quo, complemented by small-sample studies and case studies. The findings presented here will promote theory building and public understanding of early care and education in China. Moreover, the behavior observation scales and assessment tools developed by the research group are cultural appropriate and may serve as a foundation for further studies on early care and education in the Chinese cultural context.

The book explores the development of coopetition designs aimed at enhancing student collaborative learning, addressing persistent challenges such as low individual accountability and the associated free-rider issue. Moving beyond the long-standing and inconclusive debates between collaboration and competition, the book embraces the concept of coopetition—a hybrid approach that merges the strengths of both collaboration and competition while mitigating their respective weaknesses. The author develops two initial coopetition designs: social-comparison coopetition and zero-sum coopetition, both of which underwent rigorous examination and refinement through three iterative research cycles, followed by the design-based research methodology. He reveals that social-comparison coopetition consistently outperformed other designs across all cycles, demonstrating enhanced student motivation, engagement, and self-regulated learning. By contrast, while zero-sum coopetition showed slight advantages in one-off applications, its repeated use required careful handling. In conclusion, the book introduces two key design principles that define the core components and appropriate contexts for implementing coopetition, with a particular emphasis on social-comparison coopetition. The book will be valuable for researchers, educators, and teachers looking for new theories and strategies to enhance collaborative learning.

This book discusses the significance of flexible scripting to structure CSCL against the framework of “Script theory of guidance” and reports on findings from two empirical studies on the effects of flexible scripting on collaboration in CSCL scenarios. In the first empirical study flexibility was accomplished through adaptivity, and through adaptability in the second. The results of these studies show that adaptive and adaptable scripts enhanced the quality of collaborative knowledge construction processes as well as learners’ collaboration skills, compared to inflexible scripts. The findings presented in this book will contribute to theory building of the scripting approach in CSCL. The authors propose two innovative ways of achieving flexible scripting and address the mechanisms by which adaptive versus adaptable script influences collaborative knowledge construction. Moreover, the adaptive and adaptable scripting approaches provide hands-on examples for practitionersand contribute to their understanding of teaching design in CSCL settings.

This book discusses the significance of flexible scripting to structure CSCL against the framework of “Script theory of guidance” and reports on findings from two empirical studies on the effects of flexible scripting on collaboration in CSCL scenarios. In the first empirical study flexibility was accomplished through adaptivity, and through adaptability in the second. The results of these studies show that adaptive and adaptable scripts enhanced the quality of collaborative knowledge construction processes as well as learners’ collaboration skills, compared to inflexible scripts. The findings presented in this book will contribute to theory building of the scripting approach in CSCL. The authors propose two innovative ways of achieving flexible scripting and address the mechanisms by which adaptive versus adaptable script influences collaborative knowledge construction. Moreover, the adaptive and adaptable scripting approaches provide hands-on examples for practitionersand contribute to their understanding of teaching design in CSCL settings.